Why bring a DK DPS to a 10 man group?

[Louis CK]

really?...cause its the dk who is always #1 in overall dps in lfr...usually at 200k.

That's LFR. And I believe 200k in a HM environment is really bad. Not that it makes DK's bad, but just saying, I'm still gearing back up, but I fully expect to be wellll over 200k by the time I've got some Normal gear, much less HM gear.

I'm at 180k average right now in LFR gear with a piece or two of Flex.

[Deleted]

Why bring a DK DPS to a 10 man group?
I am a raid leader / guild master of a 6/14 HC 10 man group and i'm contemplating how I want my group to look like for the next tier. The class it self is subject to change in the next expension of course, but based on the state of DKs now, what are the benefits of a dk dps in a 10 man group? Instead of for example, rogue/warrior.

We don't have a dk dps in our group atm and never have so im curious as to what they bring.

I would always take DK over some Hunter or Mage.
That damage, utility + support = storng.

[Deleted]

Bring the player not the class holds true for 99% of the wow community, embrace it.

[bals]

I see people keep saying demo banner is a better cd. While that may be true in some cases, warriors will tell you that it's not that great due to how it works.
It puts a debuff on the boss, unlike aura mastery that puts a buff on the players, that reduces the damage the boss does. However, lots of abilities on fights are actually unaffected by demo banner because they do not come from the boss directly, they come from the environment. stuff on the ground for instance.

[nyc81991]

It is pointless to talk about DK's next tier because that will be in the next expansion. Which we have no information about at all.

[Darkfriend]

I see people keep saying demo banner is a better cd. While that may be true in some cases, warriors will tell you that it's not that great due to how it works.
It puts a debuff on the boss, unlike aura mastery that puts a buff on the players, that reduces the damage the boss does. However, lots of abilities on fights are actually unaffected by demo banner because they do not come from the boss directly, they come from the environment. stuff on the ground for instance.

Ye it's situationally amazing, and sometimes crap. Like rockfall on H:Tortos, it reduced stomp damage but not the rockfall damage.

As someone who raids w/ both a DK and a warrior, warriors are the stronger DPS class this tier. Not really a contest even. Arms for a few fights (H:Prot if stacked, H:Galakras, maybe spoils depending on how you do it, heck even H:immersius.) Fury for the rest w/ spectacular burst AoE and great cleave and ST.

DKs are strong, definitely, but if I had to make the choice between having 2 melee it'd be something like a rogue/warrior.

[zoomgpally]

Death grip is amazing for:
Sha of Pride manifestations
Galakras Grunts attacking crew
Basically any add on Nazgrim, especially the warshaman.
Malkorok heroic only add

Immerseus puddles too, a grip can be the difference between an add reaching middle and an add dying(possibly also cooldown reset with glyph of unholy command for stopping multiple adds?)

[shise]

Now a days all classes are the same (start all your hate and rant, but anyone playing for at least 7 years will agree in comparison to what we had back then)

So, why not?
A good DK will deal enough DPS to make it work. Sure some other class will always be able to deal more DPS, but who really cares once your set up and group is good enough?

[stardrive]

It doesn't really matter. You do know that <Depraved> is World 2nd 10 man, and the GM is a DPS DK, right? He posts here on mmo-c.

You don't want an absurdly bad composition, of course, but just bring smart players and you'll be fine.

[Louis CK]

It doesn't really matter. You do know that <Depraved> is World 2nd 10 man, and the GM is a DPS DK, right? He posts here on mmo-c.

You don't want an absurdly bad composition, of course, but just bring smart players and you'll be fine.

Exactly. For the level of raiding that they're doing, as long as you don't go out of your way to MAKE a bad comp, a decent comp will suffice.

[Varabently]

Please you know you can say this about literately every class....

That's the point though, isn't it? You can't really make a great case for DKs, but you can't for pretty much any other class either. The exception may be rogues because feint + recuperate + heal poison is so strong.

[hatchetman240]

Because of the player playing it. I'll take a good player on a DK over an average player on any class. This holds true for all classes/roles.

[Deleted]

DKs are just behind Rogues and Warriors in 10man. They're not as bas as they used to be, 1 or 2 patches ago, but they're still a hindrance because they don't bring as much utility as the latter.

[tru]

Too much utility IMO for a class that is suppose to be a heavy damage dealer. My case in point why dk dps has been and still is Mid-Low compared to the Top specs is simply we did not get damage dealing final tier talents. if you added real dps choices like EVERY OTHER CLASS GOT then we would be more balanced. Our final tier talents (as they are now) should be built into each spec i mean they took that frost freeze thing from frost dks reworked and made it a talent
desecrated ground came from unholy spec
the aoe pull should be an aoe taunt for blood...

The AOE pull is the only "new" idea that tier of talents even brought quite lame on their part. Take a few spells from different specs and make them talent choices that nobody wanted. Everyone has something to improve their damage but us and our numbers show it. We havent been great dpsers since they redid the mastery for unholy at the start of cata (i think we got almost through a tier of being really good then we got hit hard and unholy was garbage for a long time) and at the end of cata when we got that sword that procd that tentacle or w/e

[Deleted]

for surv... AMS+ siphon+ unholy str , without loosing dps = win

[Deleted]

As a 10man hc death knight raider, death grip has been really usefull this tier.

[Deleted]

I feel like I'm making it a lot easier for my raid with death grips, RW/GG, AMZ and my rule of "I never die to general raid damage" (self-heal, AMS etc). Also "we got lowest dps" may be simmed and taken from data of the best people in the world, but boss mechanics and skill of the guy behind the keyboard do more than just bridgeing that delta.

[Gandrake]

because you can complete normal mode with pretty much any conventional group composition

because if you're a heroic raider you know that the difference between your class and other specs isn't going to make or break you, even if it would be nice to be as strong as others

[Totle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoJJOrR4wj8

Skip to 2:20

Even if they're bad, they're still competent.

[Raugnaut]

Change? Like how Frost has been pretty much the same since Wotlk and also Unholy since Pre-Cata? (:

Blizz y u hate us

Thats nothing on rogues, who have had more or less the same rotation since Vanilla.

Actually, DKs recieved a bit of a rework during Cata, especially Unholy. While rogues have recieved a number of extra abilities, most of them addressed problems the class had in previous expansions!


As for DK dps...

A) DKs bring 10% AP, 10% Attack Speed, 4% increased physical damage, AND battle rez. Sure, there are 2(3) other classes that can bring battle rez, but none of them bring the amount of melee buffs that DKs bring.
B) DKs have a raid cooldown in form of AMZ. 40% magic damage reduction in a group for 3 seconds. Sure, it requires very precise timing/grouping, and there aren't many fights where you have a big burst of AoE at once (Which AMZ has always been good at mitigating), but a CD is still a CD.
C) Personal CDs. DKs have a 50% health heal with sac ghoul (almost dps resource free), a 75%(100%), up to 50% of max health, magic absorption, 45 second CD (One of the most useful CDs for reducing incoming mechanic damage), the ability to soak some hard hitting abilities (Static Shock, for instance), 20% damage reduction, ability to break out of stuns (Not too useful for raids), ect.
D) Grip. There is no other class that has grip. DKs have the ability to have 2 grips. Grip is an extremely useful spell, mass grip, even more so.

Now, we don't know for sure what will happen between now and next expansion, or what changes Blizz will bring. However, Blizz has been parading the fact that all DPS classes are EXTREMELY close on average for a while now (They keep throwing a <5% delta, pretty close to 1-2% between most/all dps classes on average).

If you are failing enrage timers, swapping out dps classes for supposedly higher dps classes will probably NOT help, unless the class can really excel in a certain fight (Destro locks on heroic Shamans, for instance). When you swap out a DK dps in a 10 man, he will probably be replaced with either a rogue (10% attack speed) or a warrior (10% AP+4% increased physical damage), potentially a hunter (10% attack power+1 other buff/debuff). The difference between the averages of any of those classes is close to zilch.

So, for next expansion, as it stands, DKs have similar utility to rogues and warriors. DPS is a coin thats ever being debated.

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One thing to add is the Dark Sim technique- a high skill technique that can be used on any fight with MCs. (Heroic Garrosh, for instance). What you do is that you can Dark Sim a player, and the characters next spell upon leaving the MC will be usable by the DK. This can be anywhere from a dps boost CD (A mage armor spell, or Doom Guard from a Warlock), to another utility spell (Revival from a monk healing, barrier from a priest healer, Devo aura from a paladin, ect). This is, hhowever, an extremely high skilled spell, and requires extreme cooridination in order to use effectively. With that being said, if theres a fight you can Dark Sim in effectively, Dark Sim allows for extra damage- on heroic Shamans, for instance, a DK can add a huge amount of extra damage by dark-simming the caster shaman, as it gives the DK close to 800k damage bolts cheaply.

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Too much utility IMO for a class that is suppose to be a heavy damage dealer. My case in point why dk dps has been and still is Mid-Low compared to the Top specs is simply we did not get damage dealing final tier talents. if you added real dps choices like EVERY OTHER CLASS GOT then we would be more balanced. Our final tier talents (as they are now) should be built into each spec i mean they took that frost freeze thing from frost dks reworked and made it a talent
desecrated ground came from unholy spec
the aoe pull should be an aoe taunt for blood...

The AOE pull is the only "new" idea that tier of talents even brought quite lame on their part. Take a few spells from different specs and make them talent choices that nobody wanted. Everyone has something to improve their damage but us and our numbers show it. We havent been great dpsers since they redid the mastery for unholy at the start of cata (i think we got almost through a tier of being really good then we got hit hard and unholy was garbage for a long time) and at the end of cata when we got that sword that procd that tentacle or w/e

Yes, DKs are the only class that has a lvl 90 utility talent tree. However, we, like the majority of classes, have 2 talent tiers that give a DPS increase. Rogues have one such tier, and monks, priests, and hunters have 3 such tiers.

So, yea, crying about everyone else having a lvl 90 dps talent but us is really... meh, don't know the proper term, red herring? We basically have the same amount of damage increasing tier talents that everyone else does.